I know that the first word that comes to mind when you think of Wolfman would be “sentimental”. Followed by “handsome” and “nutcase”. Let’s go back to that first word for a second though, shall we? SENTIMENTAL. I’d never actually seen the original My Bloody Valentine and a theater nearby was screening it in 35 mm ON Valentine’s Day, so what better time to check it out? Considering how many movies I had seen a couple of months ago that tied directly into holidays that were absolute garbage, I had pretty low standards for this movie. I also vaguely remember watching the remake the was in 3D and thinking it was hot garbage (but not like sexy hot, like gross hot) and having no interest in the original. However, being the sentimental fuck that I am, I figured what better time to watch it than on Valentine’s Day? Some of the strengths of the movie delve into spoiler territory, as a warning, but considering this movie is 30 fucking years old, I won’t be too offended if I’m the one who finally ruins the ending.

Even though this was probably meant to be a nod to Psycho’s shower scene, it felt more like a “Fuck you, now THIS is violent”. Totally okay with that.

In a small mining community, the entire town is preparing for their Valentine’s Day dance, an occasion that hasn’t been celebrated in 20 years. Why has it been 20 years since the last dance, you ask? Well, 21 years ago there were miners down in a mine and when two of the supervisors left to attend the Valentine’s Day dance, six men ended up trapped in the mine. When rescue workers finally cleared the rubble, there was only one man left alive who survived because he ate some of the other miners. This dude went to an asylum for a year, but when he got out, he went on a murder spree of the people responsible for the cave-in and warned the town to never have this dance again. After 20 years, they figured this nutcase was bluffing, but when the local sheriff opens a heart-shaped box to find a real heart inside, he knows that shit is about to get real. He orders the dance to be canceled as to not test the crazy dude’s threats. The current employees of the coal mine decide to throw a party anyway and take a fun trip down the coal mine, which is when they realize they’re being stalked by a creep in a coal mining outfit. After some pointless characters are killed, it’s revealed that the current murderer isn’t the old nutjob up to his old tricks, but the current nutjob is the son of one of the men responsible for the original cave-in. When the mine caves in on the new nutjob, he cuts his own arm off and descends further into the mine and taunts the rescue workers to come on in and find him, and the movie ends. I’m sure they totally found him though. How could they not?!

This pot is full of boiling water which was being used to boil hot dogs and there was a chubby lady just fucking scarfing them down and I thought it was SO FUNNY.

Before we get too carried away, what kind of fucking sense does THAT make? So, the son of a victim of the original murders goes insane and starts murdering people? It’s not like this dude was seeking vengeance for his father, because his father is the dickhead who let the collapse happen in the first place. So, if he’s not seeking revenge, is it just a coincidence? Or was it just an attempt to be clever by drawing an arbitrary connection to the original event? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Any time we ever see some “Killer was son of X and systematically picks off people connected to the events that made X kill in the first place” or whatever, it was just pointless. THAT BEING SAID, this movie is a lot of fun. I’d always kind of lumped this movie in with other slashers from the 80’s where it was just an excuse to show gore and tits, but this movie had hardly any of either of those. Even though the gore wasn’t graphic, there were two pretty creepy scenes in the movie that stood out as scarier than most other slashers from the decade. One sequence involved our killer, dressed head-to-toe in mining equipment, using a pick-ax to smash the only light bulbs in the mine, one at a time. Slowly, deliberately, he violently smashes any hope of safety that the victims have. With so many other slashers having a killer with no real method to their madness, it was intimidating to see this guy in a creepy-ass outfit toying with his victims, even if his victims couldn’t see him doing it. The other sequence is the ending, where the killer frees himself and just slowly crawls away into the darkness. There are plenty of slashers that end with an implication that our killer isn’t really dead, but with the ending so blatantly addressing that this guy is not finished, but is also escaping somewhere that he can’t be easily caught, it gave you a sense of unease. Seeing a character who seemed pretty normal throughout the whole movie descending into such an unexpected madness, cowering into the darkness with only a stump of an arm because he cut it off himself, the ending felt much darker than just your average goofy slasher. The hokiness of a slasher based around Valentine’s Day was definitely there, so the film was both intentionally funny and unintentionally goofy at times, so combined with some actual disturbing sequences makes My Bloody Valentine an above average slasher that’s a lot of fun and has some pretty creepy stuff in it.

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